Discomfort Food
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: Because really, he wasn't fooling anyone.


**Author's note: I'm sure the name gives it away, but this is a companion piece of sorts to Comfort Food, set a few years earlier. I am going to write a third, concluding one-shot to finish this little trilogy, set in seventh year. Hurray!**

**Also, ****I am sure that many of you who read this are going to hate James in this one-shot, but please bear in mind that he is only fourteen! He does not stay mean forever! And anyway, there's something charming about his horribleness, I think. **

**Disclaimer: Lily and James are not mine. I wish James was, though.**

**Discomfort Food**

"Argh!" she cried miserably, spitting strands of curly brown hair out of her mouth as she attempted to wrench the lid off her jam jar and failed for the twelfth time that morning. The boy sitting across the table from her surveyed her hapless struggle with amusement from behind wire rimmed glasses and an overlong, floppy black fringe, and endeavoured to hide his giggles behind a napkin. On his left, his best friend let out a bark of laughter that attracted attention from the people in the immediate vicinity. Kicking him beneath the table, James Potter rolled his eyes exasperatedly at his girlfriend of two months and grinned to himself.

The girl eventually gave up her efforts, and held the traitorous jar out to the black haired boy with a pout and a flutter of her eyelashes. "Jamie, could you please open this for me?"

He groaned. He absolutely hated it when she called him Jamie.

"Go on, _Jamie_," his best mate, a rather handsome boy by the name of Sirius Black, whispered, elbowing James in the ribs. "Before the little princess starts to cry!" He began to snicker loudly again, and leaned to his left in order to whisper something to the short, rotund blonde boy named Peter who was currently spluttering into his tea.

"James," murmured a sandy haired boy named Remus who was sitting on his right. "Be nice."

He looked once more at his girlfriend.

"Do it yourself," he said, folding his arms and ignoring Remus' request. Every third year in Gryffindor was currently squashed together at the table, eating their breakfast, and Heather was the only one who couldn't open her jam jar. It was bloody stupid.

"Sorry?" she said, stunned.

"Open it yourself. It's a bloody jam jar, it's not like you're trying to open it with magic," he said loudly, not caring that he had probably embarrassed her by pointing out her weakness at Charms in front of their friends. She was always making him look like an idiot him in front of his mates, what with her pet names and giggly gossiping and constant, unwarranted tears. In fact, she never seemed to miss an opportunity to humiliate him. Either that or she was dragging her stupid, giddy best friend Cheryl Midgen around with them everywhere, and between the two of them it was impossible for a man to get any peace. It was downright unacceptable at this stage and on top of that, he was starting to get a reputation in the dorm as a bit of a Nancy.

However, James Potter still took a certain amount of pride in the knowledge that he, at the tender age of fourteen, was officially the first third year in Hogwarts to have gotten himself a girlfriend. Heather Jordan may have been whiny, irritating, and far too much of a girly girl for James to handle, but she was pretty enough to attract significant envy from plenty of his classmates, an envy that was sure to increase in tenfold when James became the first third year of the year to _dump_ his girlfriend, so she was handy to have around. The dumping of ones' girlfriend, especially when said girl was as pretty as Heather, signified that one was ready to move on to bigger and better things, which James most certainly was, and he was quite certain that he would not be short of admirers after he pulled this off.

If only she didn't test his patience so bloody much.

"But I tried already and I can't-"

"If I can do it, Heather, you can." He folded his arms and shook his head wearily.

"But I'm a _girl_," Heather whined, looking as if her eyes were about to well up with tears. "You're so much stronger than I am."

"Well if you're a girl, how come Evans can open her jam jar all by herself and you can't?" he snapped. He pointed at Lily Evans, who was currently sitting a little away from Heather with her best friend Beatrice and looking as if she would very much like to vanish on the spot. Evans was his favourite target for teasing at the minute, being easy to wind up, and she was one of the only girls he knew who could actually argue back instead of bursting into tears. Lately he had taken to sitting next to her in class whenever she arrived early and poking her until she lost her temper, which had actually resulted in more than one detention for both of them. This drove her crazy, but James rather enjoyed them, and had great fun recounting tales of 'Detentions with Evans' to his friends. For some inexplicable reason, Heather had become rather jealous of Evans as a result, and so James liked to bring her up in conversations to annoy his whiny girlfriend. "Why can't you be more like her?"

A stunned silence fell over the little gaggle of third year Gryffindors as Heather's eyes widened in surprise at this last statement. Even Sirius and Peter stopped laughing to stare at the girl whose expression was gradually turning from miserable to malevolent. On James' right, Remus groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Lily Evans went bright red and tried to hide behind her fringe. Her best friend snorted with laugher and accidentally spat beans all over the table, but James hardly noticed. A new and rather intriguing idea had just occurred to him concerning his red headed nemesis.

"What did you say, James?" Heather whispered, lowering her voice to dangerous tones. Beside her, Cheryl Midgen was glaring at him as if he'd announced his plans to kill Heather while she slept, which wouldn't be such a bad idea, now that he thought of it. However, neither girl was particularly intimidating, so he merely laughed shortly and spooned some rice pudding into his mouth.

"You heard me," he said, with a finality that he hoped would make Heather understand that the conversation was now finished, and turned to Sirius. "She's probably going to start crying now," he whispered. "Look."

But Heather, quite possibly for the first time in her life, did not start crying. Perhaps she was just too incensed by two months of being compared to another girl. James remembered hearing that that sort of thing could upset a woman. "Well maybe you should just go out with Evans, then, if she's so perfect! Merlin knows you're always talking about her! Go on, ask her out! See if I care!" she shouted, slamming the jar down on the table. Her voice rang out over the Great Hall, and every head turned in their direction.

"You know what? Maybe I will!" he shot back. "At least she knows how to hold a wand the right way around!" Smirking at the hurt and shocked expression on Heather's face, James looked again at Lily Evans, who was in danger of getting jam and butter in her hair if she bent her head any lower. "Hey, Evans! How would you fancy going-"

"NO!" Lily Evans interrupted, horrified.

"Now, Evans," he said soothingly. "That's very sweet of you, you lovely thing, but you shouldn't try to spare Heather's feelings on my account."

Both girls' mouths dropped open simultaneously. With a loud cry, Heather jumped out of her seat and stormed out of the Great Hall with Cheryl at her heels. James ignored her, however. He flashed Evans his best charming smile and winked at her. "So how does Friday suit you?"

"James, you smooth operator," whispered Sirius. Lily Evans, however, completely ignored his question.

"I can't believe you just did that to her, you horrible prat!"

"Don't avoid the question, Lily!" he said suavely. "You can hardly blame me, can you? You're very pretty, you know." It wasn't exactly untrue, he reasoned with himself. He supposed her hair was okay, and she had these odd freckles on her nose that he liked to look at, and her eyes were a rather pretty shade of green. He liked the way her eyes looked when she got angry especially, because they would sort of flash in that way only hers could and he'd stare at them and, well, it was nice to look at. Especially when her cheeks got all pink and she started waving her arms about and…

He didn't fancy her, or anything. He just thought she wasn't half bad looking. You know, for an ugly girl. No matter what his mates thought.

"I wouldn't go out with you in a million years!" she snarled, absolutely furious, but he noticed, to his delight, that she had blushed when he complimented her.

"I know you like me," he said, smirking roguishly. "You're always sitting next to me in class and trying to hone in on my detentions. You love me, Evans. Don't pretend that you don't want some of this."

"I can't bloody well stand you, you tactless twit!"

"Go on, Evans," he wheedled, flashing her his pearly whites. "Go out with me. You'll have fun, I promise."

"James knows how to show a lady a good time, you know," Sirius chipped in. "Wining and dining and all that."

"It's true," he agreed, "I'm very rich."

"How about you buy me a mallet so I can smash your head in!" she cried. "I don't want to go out with you. I'll never want to go out with you. I'd rather shove a scorpion down my throat, you horrible, spiteful, arrogant little _child_!"

"I've never heard such touching words of love," he cooed, placing a hand over his heart. "You're only making it obvious now, Evans. Everyone knows you like me. And I wouldn't be too picky about dating if I were you, either. The only other person around here who'd _dream_ of asking you out is Snivellus, and that's only because-"

He didn't get any further, as Evans, probably in a misguided show of affection, he figured, neatly picked up a slice of Beatrice's baked beans on toast and hurled it straight at him. Cold beans splattered all over his face, into his hair, covered his robes and fell to the floor around him. His glasses were smeared in red sauce. The slice of toast slid down his chest and landed forlornly in his lap. Remus and Sirius recoiled as they, too, were hit by wayward beans. Squinting slightly, James could see that Lily seemed to have risen from her seat at some point, red in the face and looking like she couldn't believe what she had just done. For several moments, there was a stunned silence as everyone in the Great Hall took in the sight.

Sirius's barking laugh suddenly seemed to blast out of nowhere, and several people jumped. With as much dignity as he could muster, James took off his glasses, wiped them with his bean stained napkin, put them back on, and watched his best friend collapse into hysterics beside him.

"Evans, you fucking genius!" Sirius gasped between laughs, clutching his side. "That was, that was... Look at his face! Look at his - Moony, Moony, look at his face!" Sirius dissolved into hysterical giggles, seemingly unable to speak any longer, and gradually the occupants of the Great Hall followed suit. Beatrice Booth seemed unable to breathe, Peter was snorting into his porridge and even Remus was choking with laughter. James saw Severus Snape, sitting at the Slytherin table and looking like all of his birthdays had come at once, and Avery beside him, pointing and laughing his stupid braying laugh.

In fact, the only person who wasn't laughing at the situation was Evans herself, who was still frozen above her seat, breathing heavily, her cheeks red and her eyes sparkling with some sort of half exhilarated, half bewildered fury.

Merlin, she was _gorgeous_.

How had he never noticed before? She was bloody stunning, all pale, delicate skin and fiery red hair and emerald green eyes, stunning! It was obvious, apparent, absolutely right in his face, and he had somehow missed it, missed it because he had going out with Heather bloody Jordan, of all people, when he could have been chasing Evans! What was he, some kind of idiot? Why hadn't his friends told him? Well, they had, but they'd always dropped the subject when he told them to, what good was that? If they were any kind of friends they would have knocked some sense into him instead of allowing him to run around the school with Whatserface. Some friends they were. He'd show them. He'd show everyone.

As far as he was concerned, Lily Evans was as good as his from that moment on, and there wasn't a thing anyone else could do to stop it.

"Playing hard to get, yeah?" He looked her up and down appreciatively. "I like that."

With a low snarl, Evans turned on her heel, stepped over the bench and stormed out of the Great Hall without so much as a backwards glance at him. Over at the Slytherin table, Severus Snape scrambled hurriedly out of his seat and raced after her.

Hah, she definitely liked him.

Rather pleased with the turn of events, and grateful to finally have rid himself of a very annoying girlfriend, James wiped his face with his hand and picked up another spoonful of rice pudding.

"Women, eh?" he said cheerfully, nudging Remus in the ribs. "I wonder what pissed her off?"


End file.
